Scientists 3D print a robot that walks away when complete

You know what's cooler than printing robot parts on a 3D printer? Scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory figured out how to hack a Stratasys 3D printer so that it not only prints the hard and flexible materials necessary for mobile robots, but also simultaneously adds in fluid to create working hydraulics, giving them the ability to print an entire, working hydraulic-actuated robot in one 3D print pass. The robot can even get up and walk away from the printer, after an external motor and battery is added. The scientists' work on the walking and slightly creepy hexapod robot (and other 3D printed hydraulics) is detailed in a new paper just submitted to IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. It describes how they hacked a 3D printer to accept fluid as a working material by replacing a built-in RFID chip for what is basically the printer's cleaning fluid with a chip that identifies the liquid as a printable material.